Partly, it was a bait and switch. Much of the Tea Party was always the Christian right rebranded; according to the Public Religion Research Institute, three quarters of Tea Partiers consider themselves Christian conservatives. Among those who made their way to Congress with Tea Party support were Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), a former spokesperson for […]

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The Church has not softened its stance against contraception or the “Obama compromise,” which requires the insurer rather than the religious institution to provide contraceptive coverage. Republican members of Congress have not retracted their defense of the Church’s position. They vow to keep employer health plans from covering contraceptives for hundreds of thousands of employees of all faiths working in religious institutions. The contraception […]

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Santorum’s position on contraception conforms with a doctrine that most Catholics ignore: that sexual union must serve the purposes of procreation. “It [contraception] is not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be,” Santorum said. “They are supposed to be within […]

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to the collateral constitutional damage of the War on Terror. But the author, former New York Times correspondent David K. Shipler, is in pursuit of a much larger and more troubling development. Shipler exposes the frayed edges of our “constitutional culture.” Most citizens don’t know much about our liberties, he argues persuasively, and so don’t guard them from […]

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“Mitt Romney takes his religion seriously, and he won’t let us know that,” a Mormon scholar told me. “He goes quiet, or dark, on the issue of religion.” Romney not only avoids discussing Mormonism, he rarely discusses his personal history with the church. Most Mormon men end their official connection to the church when they […]

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